by John Keller | Feb 3, 2010 | Fuel Pricing Technology, Industry News
NACSOnline reported a gas station in Avondale Ohio accidentally had posted a price of $.27 a gallon on their sign, without their employees’ knowledge.
The price continued for 2.5 hours, and customers drove as far as 175 miles to take advantage of the low fuel price. The store employees didn’t notice the low price until customers started paying with cash. No word on how much money was lost during that day.
This is the Fuel Manager’s worst nightmare. And who is to say it couldn’t happen again if the store headquarters isn’t using Fuel Pricing software to monitor the current price of the sign? With the Fuel Pricing technology available today, there’s no reason why a station or c-store would ever have to go through this agony of selling fuel at such a loss.
You can read the article here.
by John Keller | Feb 1, 2010 | Fuel Price Management, Fuel Price Optimization, Retail Fuel Margins
NACS Online published an interesting article about a pricing study conducted at the University of Miami School of Business Administration, where they found a pricing strategy that resulted in a 200 percent increase in sales and a 55 percent increase in profits. An excerpt is pasted below:
“Researchers have found that retailers can increase sales and profits if they increase the price of a sale item to its original cost in gradual steps. The “Steadily Decreasing Discounting” strategy comes after the initial sale when you progressively increase the price back to its regular level versus in one shot.”
“The researchers found that SDD is more effective for two reasons: first, consumers consider past prices but also forecast future prices. So when consumers see a trend of increasing prices, they forecast higher future prices and are more inclined to make a purchase today. Second, if buyers expect prices to increase, they are more likely to make a purchase to avoid feeling regret. With the incremental pricing of SDD, increases are comparatively less significant, and the consumer is therefore more likely to buy immediately—even after having missed the initial sale.”
This research has direct applicability in the volatile pricing environment of the Fuel Manager. As the Fuel Manager adjusts his pricing upward to accommodate for higher replacement costs, he can be more effective if he steadily increases the price gradually over several days, rather than in one shot. As consumers become aware of repeated street price increases, they are likely to fill up sooner rather than later, with the reasoning that they have to jump in to the buying process now before the price of gas goes even higher.
As the Fuel Manager is monitoring the market response to these price changes, it’s more critical than ever to have access to Fuel Pricing software that can make it clear how price changes are effecting sales volume and competitive pressures at each individual store.
by John Keller | Jan 31, 2010 | Fuel Price Management, Fuel Price Optimization, Retail Fuel Margins
The c-store industry is lucky to have the PCATS (Petroleum Convenience Alliance for Technology Standards) organization to facilitate the cooperation and collaboration between customers, service providers and vendors in the c-store ecosystem. One of the sub-groups in PCATS is the Motor Fuels working group.
The Motor Fuels working group promotes electronic communication between retail fuel buyers, suppliers and delivery vendors to:
- Manage fuel inventory levels
- Minimize freight and transportation costs
- Provide speed of order placement
- Improve speed of response to demand changes
- Manage fuel pricing and monitor competitor pricing
The Motor Fuels Working Group established the standards currently implemented by retailers, jobbers and major oil companies using bills of lading, electronic funds transfers, credit card settlements, invoices and fuel pricing.
In 2010 the committee will focus on:
- Developing use cases for existing wholesale fuel and distribution standards
- Refining existing standards as needed to ease implementation
- Developing use cases for retail fuel price management and competitive price collection
- Define an implementation roadmap for new standards
Yours truly sits on the PCATS Motor Fuels working group, and I’ll be providing insight into the vendor and customer needs around managing fuel pricing and using fuel pricing software. The next meeting is scheduled to be held during NACSTech in New Orleans May 4-6. I’ll keep blogging to keep you up to speed regarding decisions made by this working group.
by John Keller | Jan 29, 2010 | Fuel Price Management, Fuel Pricing Technology, Retail Fuel Margins
I love my Droid phone. I use it off and on all day and I’m always looking for new reasons to use applications on it. That’s why I was pleasantly surprised this morning to see an important update to my Where application. The Where app is a location-based mobile platform that allows you to see important information about your location like local restaurants, movies, traffic and weather. I’ve been using it to lookup local gas prices. According to past press releases, Where receives gas price information from Garmin, who receives gas price information from OPIS, as well as GasBuddy.com, another OPIS partner.
The latest update this morning allows the Droid user to report an updated gas price. Think gasbuddy.com, but from a Droid-specific application. It’s yet another way for consumers to report gas prices they see on the street and feel like they’re contributing to the community.
There are well over 25,000 active accounts for Where, and recent reviews in the Android Market include:
“Everything in 1 app. It’s awesome and quick…this app should get an award.”
“Far and away the best app on the Market right now!”
The Where app is also available for the BlackBerry, Palm Pre, and iPhone.
Fuel Managers would do well to keep track of the prices that are being reported for their stores on Where. If they see an inaccurate report, an update is a simple click away.
by John Keller | Jan 22, 2010 | Fuel Price Management Solutions, Fuel Pricing Software
PriceAdvantage fuel pricing software is featured in a CSP Magazine article titled “From Guts to Gigabytes”, where fuel retailers discuss using fuel price management solutions to optimize, simplify, and accelerate speed-to-street fuel pricing. Murphy Oil and CEFCO are two featured c-store companies in the interview. Here’s an excerpt:
Things have greatly changed in the month since implementation. Morrow-Cortinez says fuel pricing takes a mere 15 minutes for that location. The software is compatible with the company’s Verifone POS terminal and electronic price sign (also from Skyline), so prices that are input at the home office can also be made directly at the store. “We hit a send button and it goes down and does the rest of the work for us,” she says. “The store personnel, besides being alerted as a message on the register system, don’t have to do a thing.”
View the entire article here.
by John Keller | Jan 21, 2010 | Fuel Price Management, Fuel Price Optimization, Retail Fuel Margins
I just read a great interview with Stan Sheetz on smartplanet.com in their Smart People section. Mr. Sheetz is President and CEO of Sheetz, a c-store chain with 368 locations in the Mid-Atlantic states, headquartered in Altoona, PA. It’s a quick, insightful and entertaining read where Mr. Sheetz discusses the importance of using technology to be more efficient, cost effective, and closer to their customers. He discusses a new iPhone app they’re working on, automatic inventory replenishment, and what Sheetz will look like 10 years from now. Mr. Sheetz comes across as a hip and fun guy to work for, and a forward thinker.
Sheetz was recently named the #1 Retailer to work for in Pennsylvania, as named by the Best Places to Work in PA group. The group compiles employee surveys to come up with their results. Based on who their President and CEO is, no wonder Sheetz employees like working there so much
The interview may be found here.
by John Keller | Oct 16, 2009 | Customer News, Fuel Price Management, Fuel Price Optimization
Skyline Products has recently completed a pilot program, using patent pending PriceAdvantageTM software to help Sheetz reduce costs and markedly increase available customer selling time.
Mark Wilson, Director of Store Support for Sheetz, was able to achieve these results with Skyline’s patent pending PriceAdvantage software. Wilson piloted the software in 10 stores and changed only two things: 1) the ability to manage and reset electronic price signs remotely from headquarters or from within the store, and 2) the ability to remotely manage prices on the electronic price signs.
These two improvements translated into forecasted annual savings of $141,000 in service maintenance, and will increase available store manager face time with customers by up to 50 hours annually per store, across 360 stores.
“The software gave us all of that in a usable, understandable, teachable and trainable package,” Wilson says. “The smarter the systems are that we place in the stores, the better information we have at headquarters. That’s what we look for in technology today. “
“This is just one example of the tremendous return on investment that we see our customers experiencing regularly with PriceAdvantage. The payback time for the software is short, and the benefits drive directly to top line revenue and profitability.” said Greg Stadjuhar, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Skyline Products.
Future plans at Sheetz include expanding the pilot program across all 360 stores, and integrating technologies which will allow headquarters to remotely update fuel pricing in the field at the POS, the pump, and the Skyline Electronic Price Display—all from their desktop computer, laptop, or handheld device.
by John Keller | Aug 18, 2009 | Fuel Price Management Solutions, Fuel Price Optimization
Skyline Products, long known for its high-quality electronic price displays and fuel price optimization and execution software, announces the addition of its newest Value Added Reseller for PriceAdvantage™, Radiant Systems of Alpharetta, GA.
“Using PriceAdvantage, our joint customers can remotely execute their fuel pricing strategy all the way down to the POS,” said Greg Stadjuhar, vice president of sales and marketing for Skyline Products. “. According to OPIS, the average retailer changes fuel prices four or more times per week. PriceAdvantage provides petroleum marketers the ability to instantly react to competitive market changes from anywhere and confirm—with absolute certainty—that the changes occurred.”
The patent-pending software allows petroleum marketers at corporate headquarters to remotely update fuel pricing in the field at the POS system, the pump, and the Skyline Electronic Price Display—all from their computer, laptop, and PDA.
“Centralized management has always been a key component of the Radiant solution,” said Jimmy Frangis, vice president of petroleum and convenience retail for Radiant Systems. “Bringing centralized fuel price management to our customers just made sense. With our relationship with Skyline customers can grow fuel revenue and save managers and other store operations professional’s time. PriceAdvantage customers see a tremendous return on investment in labor savings, recaptured margin and increased fuel volume.”
PriceAdvantage automates the three major components of a typical fuel-pricing process: competitive data collection, analysis, and price implementation at the store. Competitive price changes are available real-time via electronic updates from each store, third-party data sources, like OPIS; or back-office imports. Fuel managers can set up strategic pricing rules against which new competitive data is evaluated against volume and margin performance. Updates to fuel pricing can then be sent instantly to the site’s Radiant POS system, the dispenser, and the Skyline Electronic Price Display—freeing store managers to focus on customer service. By integrating with back-office accounting systems, like PDI, PriceAdvantage also includes easy-to-use pricing analysis tools to enable the pricing managers to determine price points at which store profitability is maximized.
by John Keller | Mar 15, 2007 | Customer News, Fuel Pricing Software, Fuel Pricing Technology, PriceAdvantage
Skyline Products, long known for its high-quality electronic price displays, announces the installation of its newest product, PriceAdvantage™ Central Control Fuel Pricing Software, at pilot sites of Royal Farms, Inc. of Baltimore, Md. The revolutionary, patent-pending software allows petroleum marketers at corporate headquarters to remotely update fuel pricing in the field at the POS system, the pump, and the Skyline Electronic Price Display—all from their computer, laptop, and PDA.
“Using PriceAdvantage, our customers can remotely execute their individual fuel pricing strategy per store, per grade in real-time,” comments Greg Stadjuhar, Skyline Products vice president of sales and marketing. “Some have called this ‘pricing nirvana.’ With today’s market volatility, companies can no longer solely rely on the store manager to change the price, collect the competitive data and confirm the changes were made. According to OPIS from 2005 to present, the average retailer changes fuel prices five or more times per week. PriceAdvantage enables savvy petroleum marketers, like Royal Farms, the ability to instantly react to competitive market changes from anywhere and confirm—with absolute certainty—that the changes occurred. The ROI is very compelling when new price generation and implementation can be reduced to minutes, which for most operators would formerly take hours.”
PriceAdvantage automates the three major components of a typical fuel-pricing process: competitive data collection, analysis, and price implementation at the store. Recent competitive price changes are available real-time via electronic updates from either an in-store, touch-screen input device by store personnel; web applications providing third-party data sources, like OPIS and GasBuddy; or back-office imports. Fuel managers can set up customizable pricing rules against which new competitive data is evaluated (e.g. “maintain Store A’s unleaded, mid, premium fuels at one cent below primary competitor”). Updates to fuel pricing can then be sent instantly to the site’s POS system, the dispenser, and the Skyline Electronic Price Display—freeing store managers to focus on customer service. By integrating with back-office accounting systems, like PDI, PriceAdvantage also includes easy-to-use pricing analysis tools to enable the pricing managers to determine price points at which store profitability is maximized.
Rob Rinehart, Royal Farms director of gasoline trading, says, “The PriceAdvantage pilot program has given us the opportunity to test-drive the product on a limited basis and to evaluate its benefits. With PriceAdvantage in place, I know the competitors’ prices within seconds of a change. I can fine-tune our prices instantly, and I receive immediate confirmation that the changes occurred. We’re seeing the positive impact on gross margins already and the pilot program has proven to be cost-effective. We are now in process of implementing the PriceAdvantage solution at all of our store locations in 2007.”
Says Stadjuhar, “No other fuel pricing software product on the market provides certified integration between the POS, the pump and the electronic sign, while automating fuel-pricing control at the central office. It’s long overdue, and it’s a recipe for a chain’s success in today’s highly volatile and margin-thin market.”
